A widely shared Facebook post claims that President Joe Biden issued 56 executive orders in 40 days. The full post reads: “56 Executive Orders in under 40 days.....That, my friends, is an actual Dictator.”
This is a false claim.
According to the Federal Register, Biden has issued 37 executive orders since January 20 of this year. It’s worth mentioning that Biden has signed more than 50 executive actions, which includes executive orders, actions, and memorandums. While it’s true that the number of executive orders in Biden’s first three months of presidency is greater than that of both Donald Trump’s and Barack Obama, it’s still well below 56.
From January 20, 2017, until March 19, 2017, Trump issued 17 executive orders and from January 20, 2009 until March 19, 2009, Obama issued 18 executive orders, according to data from the American Presidency Project.
Of Biden’s 37 executive orders, 18 of them have revoked prior orders, many of them issued to undo Trump’s policies on health care and immigartion. On February 2, for example, Biden signed three executive orders reversing Trump’s immigration policies, which included creating a task force to help reunite separated families at the border, per CNN.
While signing these immigration orders Biden acknowledged the large number of executive orders he had signed, saying: “There’s a lot of talk, with good reason, about the number of executive orders that I’ve signed, I’m not making new law, I’m eliminating bad policy.”
If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.
Who cares - he could issue 100 or 2.
The inquiry that matters - is Biden extending the use of executive power in novel or unconstitutional ways.
I assume this was a Facebook requested fact check but I find this kind of FC misses the point of the meme, it's not about the exact number of executive orders but the overall theme of Biden having many more of them than previous presidents.
It's also very possible that the claim reflects confusion between executive orders and executive actions. The FC concedes Biden has issued more than 50 of those. But I wish you'd gone further and explained what exactly the differences are between executive orders, actions, and memos. Without that, I can't really tell how close the claim is to the truth.
I did click the link but I didn't find an exact number or an explanation of the difference in the source, either.
I also am starting to think that the TDFC should consider some kind of formal scoring system that acknowledges a range of truth values.